Lib Dems call for clarity on student finances

Tue, 05 Jul 2011

The Liberal Democrats have called for more to be done to educate young people on the subject of student finances and the myths surrounding the fee increases.

A recent Sutton Trust poll found that a fifth of 11 to 16-year-old believe their families will have to pay for the cost of tuition, while a further one in ten believe that students pay for their courses with money earned before and during their studies.

Bermondsey and Old Southward MP Simon Hughes told Left Foot Forward that these figures were alarming as no university student studying for their first degree will be obliged to pay any fees starting in 2012.

"No university student has to pay anything to their university for tuition during their studies and no graduate will be obliged to pay anything back until they are earning at least £21,000 a year," he said.

"After that, they pay back a proportion of their income through the tax system."

Mr Hughes added that the government should not be accused of making university tuition unaffordable and noted that the new system is very similar to the graduate tax proposed by the National Union of Students.

A taskforce was recently set up to help debunk the myths surrounding the changes to student finance and how university courses will be paid for after it became clear that there was a great deal of confusion surrounding the matter.
add to favouritesnewsletterlink to this pagesend to friendpost comments

Link to this page

Copy and Paste the following HTML into your page.